F14. Routed unit stuck in Rail Mode

[Dog Soldier]

Rick,
I think you are now getting what I am proposing here now. The other responses were too terse for me to see what it was you and Ed were thinking. Also, broken units do not remain broken forever, condemned to "ride the rails of hell" etc. They only need to become disrupted status and they can "detrain". Really just a timing mechanism for returning rail capacity than an actual getting on or off an actual train.

I am thinking solely about a temporary rail capacity reduction. Most broken units can recover from broken to disrupted status if in command of their HQ in a full game day's time. They are still not ready for duty necessarily, but it does make a nice delay in rail capacity.

Another issue simulated here is the broken unit would be restricted from moving in rail mode towards the enemy. Thus if the unit is between other units in rail mode on the rail line, it could cause a temporary congestion on the rail line for other units in rail mode that would need to be sorted out. Seems reasonable considering the damage inflicted to break a unit.

Now the point you make about being able to move about on the rail line after being broken in rail mode is a problem. Really the unit should not. With the way the game engine works I can not see a solution to that being weird as you point out. One could rationalize the unit is being evacuated from the area, the same as bulldozing wrecked tanks off a road to clear the road for the column. Not too bad then from that perspective is it?

I just thought most commanders would try hard not to get units in rail mode too close to the front. They are very vulnerable. A penalty of a broken unit, lost rail capacity and possible blockage by such a unit on the rail line seems three good reasons to out weigh the one issue of the unit still being able to move about on the rails after being broken. Three to one is not really that bad, is it?

Dog Soldier